Supercomputer Watson Takes on Cancer

Feb. 15, 2013 -- IBM's Watson, the supercomputer that grabbed headlines after beating the best contestants on Jeopardy!, now is setting its sights on cancer.

Two years after Watson's victory on the game show, IBM is offering up the pizza-box-sized computer for health care. Its developers have chosen to debut it prominently in cancer care.

Watson’s first application is highly focused: recommending the best drug treatment options for patients with late-stage cancers called lung adenocarcinomas, said Mark Kris, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The New York City hospital is developing the tool with IBM and Wellpoint, the managed care company.

Adenocarcinomas are the most common form of lung cancer, and chemotherapy is the most common form of treatment, Kris says.

The supercomputer has compiled a mountain of data from thousands of sources including journal articles, national guidelines, hospital best practices, clinical trials, and textbooks.

Replacing Doctors?

West, who is not involved with Watson, sees two problems with its use in cancer care: that cancer varies from person to person and that clinical decisions are often matters of judgment.

Even the most complex algorithms rely, to some degree, on “classic presentation,” he says. Medical practice is less orderly, he says. “The truth is that just about every cancer case is special and has some unique aspects to it, or at least there are so many extenuating factors that it’s hard to be rule-based.”